MURDERERS - William A. Percy

MURDERERS 4

"unmentionable vice" and occasional glingto get on, and in practicalways helped
flashes of homoeroticism. The two most many a lame dog."
prominent characters, Reginald (no last
name] and Clovis Sangrail, are dandies. BIBLIOGRAPHY.A. J. Langguth, Saki:A
Reginald is a vain and good looking young Life of Hector Hugh Munro, New York:
man, with nice eyelashes, who compares
himself with Ganymede, wears "a carna- Simon & Schuster, 1981.
tion of the newest shade", and takes spe-
cial delight in shocking people. A few of John Lauritsen
his epigrams have become famous ("To
have reached thirty is to have failed in MURDERERS
life."). At the same time that Reginald is
courted by both men and women, he More homosexuals have been the
himself has an interest in lift boys, gar- victims of murder than its instigators, but
dener boys, choir boys, and page boys. the popular imagination has seized on
Clovis Sangrail, a bit older and more so- certain sensational exceptions to promul-
phisticated, frequents the Jermyn Street gate the legend of the lust-driven, anti-
baths (as did Munro himself) and is an social sadist preying on young men. Cheap
admirer of male beauty, in others as well fiction likes to show the homosexual
as himself. murderer as effete and flamboyant, but
this is seldom true in reality. Occasion-
Among the gayer stories are ally, as in the case of Kenneth Halliwell,
Gabriel-Ernest (a masterpiece which can lover and slayer of the playwright Joe Or-
be read on at least three different levels: a ton, the violent act is a domestic crime of
werewolf horror story, a comedy, and a passion, theculmination of longself-loath-
parable of pederastic temptation),Adrian, ing and humiliation. More often, the
The Music on the Hill, Reginald's Choir motive is profit, as when a hustler kills a
Treat, The Innocence of Reginald, and john in his apartment: the files of the
Quail Seed. A central figure in QuailSeed Europeanpolice arepacked with such cases
is a boy, "about sixteen years old, with going back to the eighteenth century.
darkolive skin, largedusky eyes, and thick, Homosexual Lustmord or sexual murder
low-growing, blue-black hair" who works is less common than believed, and its
as an "artist's model"; the story concludes practitioners rarely carry on lengthy tor-
with the artist's statement: "We enjoyed ture sessions. Serial killers are generally
the fun of it, and as for the model, it was a closeted, withan emotionallifearrested in
welcome variation on posing for hours for childhood; their murders may be violent,
'The Lost Hylas."' but are often prompted by an inability to
make emotional contact with another
When World War 1 broke out, human being. They are unilateral in their
Munro, then 43 years old, enlisted in the taking of sexual pleasure and unimagina-
army. Rejecting several offers of a com- tive in the recurrent patterns of their
mission, he remained in the ranks. His crimes.
two years at the front, in the company of
young working class men, were appar- The earliest criminals on record
ently the happiest time of his life. He was to mix homicide and homosex are mon-
killed by a sniper's bullet in 1916, his last archs or nobility, whose power enabled the
words being: "Put that damn cigarette crimes and whose prominence lent them
out!" notoriety. Zu Shenatir, fifth-century ty-
rant of El-Yemen, enticed young men and
His sister Ethyl, in her Biography boys to his palace, sodomized them, and
of Saki, wrote his epitaph: "He had a tre- tossed them out of windows. He is alleged
mendous sympathy for young men strug- to have died, stabbed through the anus by
the youthzerash. Tipu Sahib (1751-1799),

.t MURDERERS

the Sultan of Mysare in India, convinced girls andyoungwomen. Anadept inwitch-

that he was the chosen servant of Moham- craft and alchemy, with the aid of her

med with a mission to destroy infidels, handmaiden-lovers Barsovny and Otvos,

would customarily sodomize every Euro- she kidnapped local girls and imprisoned

pean he captured, including General Sir them in her castle in Csej, northwest

David Baird; their childrenwould beburned Hungary. Here she fattened and regularly

over slow fires, or sodomized while bled them to provide beauty baths for her

drugged, or defenestrated, or castrated and white skin. She would then have herself

trained as catamites. licked dry by virgins and anyone showing

Gilles de Rais. Gilles de Rais disgust would be tortured in various in-

(1404-1440)) companion-in-arms of Joan genious ways. Although her cousin was

of Arc and one of France's richest noble- prime minister, he could not protect her

men, a youth of "rare elegance and star- castle from being raided and she was ar-

tling beauty," was renowned for piety and rested and tried. Her accomplices were

courage. After Joan's death, he separated burned and decapitated, but in view of her

from his wife, retired to his castle at Tif- high birth Bhthory herself was immured in

fauges, and gave himself over to extrava- her apartments, where she died after four

gance and dissipation. To repair his for- years of this living tomb.

tunes, he had recourse to alchemy and The Rise of the Common Mur-

under the influence of Prelati, a comely derer. A signal difference between these

Italian sorcerer, commenced torturing and slayers of the past and those of the present

murdering young boys, to use their blood is that of rank. Royal or aristocratic mur-

for pacts and spells. Hundreds of children derers were in a position of privilege; their

in his territories disappeared (up to 800 sexual tastes were considered as out of the

accordingto some authorities).At his trial ordinary as their crimes. The rise of the

in 1440,he and his confederates confessed common man seems also to herald the rise

that he used the children sexually as he of the common murderer, whose depreda-

tortured them and enjoyedorgasmsasthey tions and lustsmust berationalized within

died, arranging beauty contests of their his society. With the emergence of foren-

decapitated heads. Although sentenced to sic psychiatry and "criminal anthropol-

be strangled and burned, his body was ogy," the connection between sexual in-

retrieved by his family and given a Chris- version and homicide has been studied in

tian burial. Gilles de Rais has achieved considerable, often obtuse, detail. It does

mythic status and is the subject of a study seem certain that the anonymity of sexual

by Henry Bataille, a play by Roger Plan- promiscuity in the modern metropolis is

chon, and a novel by Michel Tournier. But both a temptation and a facilitation of

one may question whether the trial testi- mass murder.

mony, extorted from underlings, was au- The first "Romantic everyman"

thentic or fabricated by the civil and eccle- murderer was Pierre Frangois Lacenaire

siastical authorities in order to seize the (1800-1835))whowrotehismemoirs while

holdings of a lord who had grown too awaiting the guillotine. Although Lace-

independent and powerful. As an emblem naire admitted to homosexual liaisons

of divine good turned diabolically evil, the 1 during earlier prison terms, he denied that

1image of Gilles de Rais still exercises a he continued them in "civilian" life; nev-
powerful hold on the imagination. ertheless, police authorities were con-

Bdthory. ErzsCbet Bathory vinced that he and his accomplice Avril

(1560-1614)) the "Blood-Thirsty Count- were more than good friends. Their last

ess" of afamily which longshowed a strain victim was a notorious tante ("auntie").

of madness and cruelty, is credited by But, except for his self-aggrandizement

legend with the death of more than 600 and pretensions to literature, there was

MURDERERS 4

little to distinguish Lacenaire's criminal lice were very slow to take action until
career from that of any heterosexual felon. bones and clothes too numerous to ignore
The same might be said of Joseph Vacher beganto turn up. Haarman and Granswere
(1869-18971, the "Ripper of Southeast indicted for 27 murders in 1924; the for-
France," who raped and ripped both sexes mer behaved with remarkable insouciance
without discrimination; or of Ronald Kray during the fortnight's trial and wrote a
[b. 1933),who with his twin brother Reg- confession that revealed his delight in his
gie terrorized the London underworld in sexual tastes and homicidal practices. He
the 1960s: Ronald was gay, his brother was decapitated; Grans was sentenced to
straight, but their records for brutality and twelve years' imprisonment. Haarmann's
viciousness were almost identical. career formed the inspiration for the film,
Zzrtlichkeit der W6lfe (1973))made by
Although the number of hetero- Fassbinder's disciple Ulli Lommel.
sexual mass murderers is high, the homo-
sexual serial killer exercises a special fas- Seefeld. Adolf Seefeld (1871-
cination for alienists and journalists alike. 1936),a German tramp and religious fa-
However, social taboos have prevented natic, killed boys with natural poisons.
the homosexualmurderer frombeingideal- When arrested and tried in 1936, he con-
ized by the media, with the exception of fessed to 12 murders, committed at ever-
Wayne Williams, whose guilt was ques- decreasing intervals between April 16,
1933, and February 23, 1935. (There may
tioned in a TV special; so far, even homo- have been more, since he had been charged
with a murder as early as 1908.)The Nazi
phobes have boggled at exploiting the court moralized over his deeds and sen-
crimes of Dean Corll and Dennis Nilsen. tenced him to be executed.
The most celebrated cases of murder by
homosexuals in modem times are the fol- Leopold and Loeb. Nathan Leo-
lowing. pold, Jr. (1905-1971) and Richard Loeb
(1906-19361, brilliant scions of wealthy
Haarmann. The German Fritz Jewish families in Chicago, were lovers
Haarmann (1876-1924) was an escapee who, under the influence of Nietzsche's
from an asylum to which he had been sent "superman" philosophy, decided to com-
because of child molestation. Once an mit a "Raskolnikovian" crime. In 1924,
exemplary soldier in a J b e r regiment, he they kidnapped a younger acquaintance,
turned petty criminal and policeinformer. BobbieFranks, battered in his skullwith a
In Hannover during World War I he be- chisel, drowned him in a culvert, disfig-
came a successful smuggler, aided by his ured his face with hydrochloric acid, and
police connections. During the postwar hid the body in a drainpipe,beforephoning
inflationary period, Haarmann, posing as a ransom demands to theparents.They were
detective, would pick up unemployed lads traced by eyeglasses Leopold dropped at
at the railway station, take them back to the culvert and, under police interroga-
his room, and murder them, often by bit- tion, Loeb confessed; both men accused
ing their throats during the sexual act. He the other of wielding the chisel. At their
would dismember the body and dispose of trial, they were defended by Clarence
it in the river that ran outside his lodgings; Darrow, who argued they were paranoid
charges that he sold the flesh for butcher's schizophrenics, thus irresponsible for the
meat were never proven, but it is a strong crime. They were both imprisoned for life
likelihood. Infatuated with a petty thief plus 99 years; in the Joliet prison shower-
and hustler, Hans Grans, who encouraged room, "Dickie" Loeb was stabbed to death
his activities, Haarmann stepped them up in a brawl; "Babe" Leopold, believed to be
and may have been responsible for over 50 the mastermind of the Franks crime, was
deaths of good-lookingyouths from 13 to
20. Despite complaints from parents, po-

4 MURDERERS

paroled in 1958 and served as a health proximately 50 persons, including a six-

worker in San Juan, Puerto Rico, until his year-old boy they beheaded; the victims

death. were often tortured before death and sexu-

Corona. JuanV. Corona, Mexican ally molested afterwards. Toole concen-

labor contractor, was convicted in 1971of trated on the boys, Lucas on the girls.

killing 25 vagrants and migrant workers, Although they confessed to some 700

whom he buried in the fruit orchards near crimes, they have since repudiated their

Yuba City, California. The motive was confessions; Toole is serving a life sen-

apparently sexual, since most of the vic- tence in Florida State Penitentiary, Lucas

tims had their pants off or down, and one is on Death Row in Texas.

had gay pornography in his pocket; they Cooper. Ronald Frank Cooper

had been stabbed and hacked about the (1950-1978]wasan unemployed laborer in

head with a machete. Corona's defense Johannesburgwho recorded in his diary in

tried to argue that he was a married man 1976the intention to "become a homosex-

with children and therefore not a homo- ual murderer .. . [I]shall get hold of young

sexual,whereashishalf-brotherNatividad, boys and bring them here where I am

convicted of an earlier attack on a young staying and I shall rape them and then kill

Mexican, was a homosexual who returned them. I shall not kill all the boys in the

to Mexico. Corona was sentenced to 25 same ways." He then went on to list the

consecutive life terms, although doubt ways, planning 30 murders, following

remains as to whether he had an accom- which he would begin a campaign against

plice or was in fact the guilty party. women. After three unsuccessful attacks,

Corll. Dean Allen Corll hemanaged to throttlea 12-year-old,failed

(1939-1973) was the child of a broken at raping him and, with a change of con-

home, a "mamma's boy" who allegedly science, sought to loosen the rope. Identi-

"came out" during his service in the U. S. fied by another boy he had molested, he

Army.In 1969,while living inHouston, he was soon arrested, convicted with the aid

began to exhibit signs of moroseness and of the diaries, and hanged.

hypersensitivity, organized glue-sniffing MacDonald. WilliamMacDonald

parties, and indulged in sadistic activities. was responsible for the murder and muti-

He would pick up boys for sex, torture and lation of four men in Sydney, Australia, in

murder them; eventually he enlisted two 1961; one of them was found castrated in

youths, Elmer Wayne Henley and David a bathhouse, another castrated in a public

Owen Brooks, as procurers and assistant toilet. MacDonald passed himself off as

torturers. The victims were often tor- his last victim, Allan Brennan, but was

mented for days at a time, occasionally picked up from Identikit descriptions.

castrated, before being despatched and Sentenced to life imprisonment, he was

buried in beaches and boathouses. Henley later transferred to a home for the crimi-

later claimed there were 31 victims, but nally insane.

only 27 bodies were recovered. The end Bartsch. Jiirgen Bartsch (b. 1946)

came in 1973 when Henley made the was a West German butcher's apprentice

mistake of bringing a girl to a party; the who between 1962 and 1967 lured four

enraged Corll threatened to kill him, and boys from acarnival in Langenberg,slaugh-

Henley shot him. Henley and Brookswere tered them in an abandoned air-raid shel-

sentenced to life imprisonment. ter, attempted anal intercourse, cut them

Toole. OtisToole of Jacksonville, up like beef carcasses, and masturbated

Florida, ex-hustler and arsonist, claims to over their bodies. On trial, he declared

have committed his first murder at the age attempts to abduct 70 more. The fact that

of 14. Between 1975 and 1981, he and his Bartsch had confessed his first crime to a

1close friend Henry Lee Lucas killed ap- priest shortly after committing the mur-

MURDERERS 4-

der and that the priest had observed the murders of two grown men, Jimmy Raye
confidentiality of the confessional occa- Payne and Nathaniel Cater; the prosecu-
sioned debate about the sacrality of such tion relied heavily on circumstantial evi-
confidence. Bartsch was condemned to life dence and innuendo, implying that the
imprisonment. children's murders could be put down to
Williams as well. He was sentenced to life
Gacy. John Wayne Gacy, Jr. (b. imprisonment and the police declared the
1942))Chicago salesman and contractor, earlier cases closed.
may have suffered a personality disorder
when struck on the head at the age of Nilsen. Dennis Nilsen [b.19451,a
eleven. A man desperate to be liked, often Scottish civil servant, holds the record for
serving as a clown at children's parties, he multiple murder in Britain. After a career
was a sony mythomaniac, pretending to in the army and the police, Nilsen became
be a precinct captain and a friend of Presi- known as an excellent worker in the Lon-
dent Carter. Twice married and twice don Manpower Services Commission; a
divorced, Gacy, who had a history of forc- frequenter of gay bars, he often took young
ing sex on young men, lured at least 33 of men, both homosexual and heterosexual,
them to his house in Des Plaines, sod- home for the night. Overwhelmed with a
omized them, often with violence, before sense of loneliness and convinced that
murdering them. The bodies were buried only death could keep his companions
there until he ran out of space and dumped from leaving him, Nilsen began to strangle
the last five in the Chicago River. He was many of them, finishingthemoff by drown-
sentenced to life imprisonment in 1980. ing in the bathtub. He would sleep beside
the corpses, occasionally masturbating, or
Bonin. William G.Bonin (b.1947) retain them on his premises, until corrup-
was a truck driver. Occasionally accompa- tion or overcrowding compelled him to
nied by friends, he cruised the streets and dissect them and dispose of the remains
freeways of Los Angeles in his self-styled under the floor-boards, in bonfires, or, in
"death van," pickingup young men. Inside his last residence, down the toilet. It was
the van, the victims were robbed, raped, the clogged drains which led to his discov-
tortured, and killed, their bodies strewn ery. On his arrest in 1983, he made a full
along the highway. Bonin varied his tech- confession, later amplified by circumstan-
niques, strangling with T-shirts, punctur- tial diaries; in prison, awaiting trial, he fell
ing with an icepick, castrating, and stab- in love with David Martin, the bisexual
bing endlessly. Altogether 44 bodies were murderer of a policeman. Nilsen was sen-
recoveredin the "Freeway Killings," which tenced to life imprisonment. Of all homo-
began in the mid-1970s. Bonin stood trial sexual serial killers, although he conforms
for ten of them in 1980, four more subse- in some respect to the standard profile,
quently. He was sentenced to death and is Nilsen seems the most intellectual, the
awaiting execution. most questioningof his own motives: these
appear to be a profound need for affection,
Williams. Atlanta's Wayne Ber- combined with a sense of the permanence
tram Williams (b. 1958)is a problematic and stillness to be found in death. It is
case: many are persuaded of his innocence significant, though not exculpatory, that
and James Baldwin, in The Evidence of he always committed his murders when
Things Not Seen (1985),writes: "It is un- thoroughly drunk, the alcohol releasing
likely, as well as irrelevant, that he is his inhibitions and permitting the sup-
homosexual." For 22 months, between pressed violence in his nature. He seemsto
1979 and 1981, 28 corpses of poor black have finally located his identity as a re-
children, two of them girls, were found viled mass murderer.
murdered, shot, stabbed, bludgeoned or
strangled. The spoiled and arrogant Wil-
liams, himself black, was chargedwith the

9 MURDERERS

Paulin. Thierry Paulin (b.19631,a second time of having committed sod-

black cabaret performer from Martinique, omy, in this instance with a young man

appeared in drag as Diana Ross in Parisian named L. Memmius FrCmiot, and on the

night clubs. In tandem with a Guyanian advice of a councilor in the parlement he

boyfriendJean-ThierryMathurin (b.1965), absconded once more. He was sentenced

he brutally murdered 29 elderly widows to death in absentia and burned in effigy

betwen 1985 and 1987,until he was iden- with FrCmiot in the Place Saint-Georgesas

tified by a survivor.His motive was appar- a Huguenot and sodomite. He crossed the

emly mere robbery. Alps in disguise and was warmly received

See also Violence. for a time in Venice, while in France his

BIBLIOGRAPHY. J. P. de River, The memory was ceaselesslyvilified.ThCodore
de Beze remarked that "For an unnatural
Sexual Criminal:A Psychoanalytic penchant Muret was expelledfrom France
Study, Springfield, IL: Charles C. and Venice, and for the same penchant he
Thomas, 1949;Laurence Senelick,The was made a Roman citizen."
Prestige of Evil: The Murderer as
Romantic Hero from Sade to Lacenaire, Muret found his fortune only
New York: Garland, 1987;Colin Wilson under the patronage of the princes of Fer-
and Patricia Pitman, Encyclopedia of rara, in whose palace everything was at his
Murder, New York: Putnam, 1962;Colin disposal: several libraries, the precious
manuscripts of the Vatican, and his
Wilson and Donald Seaman, The protector's villa. In Rome he lectured on
Aristotle, taught civil law, and was one of
Encyclopedia of Modern Murder
1962-1 982, New York: Putnam, 1983.

Laurence Senelick

the first to apply it to the study of history

and philosophy. His Latin was judged so

MURET,MARC-ANTOINE that his auditors believed that they
(1526-1 585) were hearing the voice of another Cicero.
In 1576 he entered religious orders and
French Renaissance humanist. there conducted himself in a manner that
Born at Muret in the Limousin, he was an won the approval and generosity of Pope
autodidact who became a professor at the Gregory XIII. As a defenderof the Catholic
age of eighteen. Recommended by Julius party he even composed a eulogy of the
Scaligerto the magistrates of Bordeaux,he massacre of Saint Bartholomew's eve. In
taught literature at the collegeof Guienne. addition to works on law he wrote numer-
Among his pupils was the young Michel ous Latin commentaries on the Greek and
Montaigne, who later boasted that he had Roman classics.
played the lead in the Latin tragedies
composed by his teacher. Settling in Paris, Muret was a type of Renaissance
Muret taught at the college of Cardinal scholar and intellectual who had his
Lemoine, delivering lectures so brilliant brushes with the law because of his homo-
that Henri I1 and Catherine de' Medici sexualactivity,but thanks tohis enormous
attended them. By 1552 he was giving talent and the protection of influential
courses on philosophy, theology and civil friends managed to escape the penalty
law all at the same time, while publishing which the law then decreed and even to
his poetic Juvenilia. But accused of un- have a distinguished academic career. His
natural vice, he was imprisoned at the mastery of Latin and his commentaries on
fortress of Chiitelet, and would have died the ancient authors belongedto an age that
of self-starvation had his friends not inter- saw as its main task the recovery and
vened to secure his release. Disgraced in assimilation of classical antiquity rather
Paris and reduced to poverty, he fled to than original scholarship.

Toulouse, where he eked out a living by

giving lessons in law. He was accused a